Colmes Mocks Conservative Whining About The Liberal Media

Alan Colmes appeared for his regular Tuesday night gig on The O’Reilly Factor last night (11/16/10) for a debate about the non-event of PBS editing out Tina Fey’s swipe at Sarah Palin when broadcasting her receipt of the Mark Twain Prize for Humor. Fox used this “controversy” to beat on two of their favorite targets: the so-called liberal media and the liberal entertainment establishment. Rather than go on defense, Colmes reframed the discussion with good-natured mocking: “Poor Sarah Palin, poor conservatives, always the victim of the evil liberal media. Oh, what a shame that you have to live in a world where all the media is liberal and poor Sarah Palin’s always the victim!” It was not only funny but completely yanked the stuffing out of the conservative attacks.

In the Fox world where Palin is a perennial victim, liberals, on the other hand, always seem to be fair game. The other guest, Colmes’ conservative sister-in-law, Monica Crowley, smugly sneered that Fey’s hair “was a crime against humanity.” Classy, Mon. I wonder if you would have found it just as funny had Fey made such a comment about Palin.

After Colmes sucked the air out of the attacks on PBS, O’Reilly moved on to complain that it’s always liberals who win the Mark Twain prize. “I want Larry the Cable Guy to get an award… or Foxworthy. They never get honored. It’s always (his voice grew sarcastic) Tina Fey.

Colmes joked again, “Poor conservatives. Aw, you poor little conservatives. Never get honored. I’m so sorry… Aw, it’s so hard being a conservative in America.”

Once again, that ended the debate. But O’Reilly, perhaps in good-natured retaliation, tried to put Colmes on the spot about Fox. “Fox News never gets nominated for anything… Are we that bad?”

Colmes said he doesn’t follow those things. But when he said he never gets nominated despite being a liberal, O’Reilly retored, “You’re not a liberal any more to (the liberal media). You’re a turncoat (for working at Fox News).

“That’s probably true,” Colmes conceded.

Putting aside the big liberal controversy over whether liberals should or should not go on Fox – and I’m a staunch believer that they should – when they do go on (and, realistically, it’s a matter of when, not if) they need to be prepared with counterstrategies. It’s not only important to advocate your position but perhaps even more important to keep control of the framework of the debate. This was a textbook case of how to do it.